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This paper describes some of the major elements of Marfleet Steel Company, a multidisciplinary case study which we developed with the help of Chris Dixon. The case attempted to address some of the educational problems which had arisen from our experiences with the group of students for whom it was first designed, but which we felt were typical problems of management education in general. The paper begins by discussing our own particular difficulties and their relation to the generalised problems of the education/experience gap; the common sense/education distinction; the importance of the unconscious in developing managerial “skills”; the need for integrating disparate disciplines; the difficulties of handling various and conflicting sources of information and the indispensability of action and involvement to successful learning. We go on to discuss our specific objectives and methodology in developing Marfleet, focusing on issues of verisimilitude, the provision and release of information and the importance of role‐playing to the “living case study”. We examine the running of the case, with formal inputs, monitoring the process and providing and organising feedback. Finally, we discuss the experiences of both staff and students on the case and suggest that the “living case study” method, though demanding for all participants, offers huge benefits in stimulating discovery and learning. It makes considerable advances in bridging the gap between the too often isolationist classroom case study or simulation and the organisationally problematic action‐learning project.

Early research into Agile approaches explored particular practices or quantified improvements in code production. Less well researched is how Agile teams are managed. The project manager (PM) role is traditionally one of “command and control” but Agile methods require a more facilitative approach. How this changing role plays out in practice is not yet clearly understood. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how adopting Agile techniques shape the working practices of PMs and critically reflect on some of the tensions that arise.

An ethnographic approach was used to surface a richer understanding of the issues and tensions faced by PMs as Agile methods are introduced. Ethnographic fiction conveys the story to a wider audience.

Agile approaches shift responsibility and spread expert knowledge seeming to undermine the traditional PM function. However, the findings here show various scenarios that allow PMs to wrest control and become more of a “gate-keeper”. Ethnographic fiction communicates a sense of the PMs frustration with the conflict between the need to control and the desire for teams to take more responsibility.

Stories provide insight and communicate the experiential feel behind issues faced by PMs adopting Agile to surface useful knowledge. The objective is not how to measure knowledge, but how to recognize it. These reflections are valuable to fellow researchers as well as practitioners and contribute to the growing literature on Agile project management.

This paper seeks to explore changes taking place in a curriculum design for postgraduate teaching in personnel and development, aimed at enhancing lifelong learning. A scheme is described which aims to improve the alignment for professional development of students, in ways that facilitate critically reflective practice.

The authors draw on their personal experiences as a programme leader (Master's in HRM) and an educational consultant to describe their strategy for critically reflective continuous professional development (CPD). In doing so, their practice is related to some of the theories underlying critical reflection, and the key challenges in seeking to engage student practitioners in professional development of this kind are drawn out.

It is argued that achieving an alignment between the development and assessment of student capabilities is vital to the development of critical reflection, and it is explained how the strategy presented for CPD supports self‐management of this process.

Although the paper is grounded in the authors' particular experiences and structure for student support, it is hoped that reflections on these can be of general value to those interested in developing critically reflective practice amongst students which is both effective and practical in the increasingly demanding world of higher education.

The self‐managed process explored in the paper is framed by a social approach to learning that places peer interaction at the forefront of the learning processes involved.

FOR MOST of us, public library history usually amounts to scarcely more than rapidly dimming recollections of a handful of acts and commissions; dry facts memorised during library school lectures and retained just long enough to put the exams behind us. Of course, we remember the great names— Carnegie, Dewey, McColvin, and perhaps a few others—but apart from retiring old‐timers' regular assurances that it was all so much better and worse back then, we tend to know little of the day‐to‐day routines of our predecessors.

THE SIX YEARS since the reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland have seen a massive development of services in the public library field, with progress on almost all fronts simultaneously. Five Education and Library Boards were created under legislation which gave certain advantages to the library service, not least of which was the close link with education, and including a statutory library committee and a designated post of chief librarian. Another helpful feature is the close similarity of population, which ranges from 230,000 in the Western Board to 360,000 in Belfast.

Purpose: This chapter analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic has been managed and strategies put in place to rejuvenate the tourism industry in Uganda.

Methodology: This chapter adopts an integrated approach involving questionnaire survey and rapid situational analysis of documents to synthesize information on management of past disease outbreaks, COVID-19 and their impacts on tourism.

Findings: Uganda's tourism industry is vulnerable and has been exposed to past disease outbreaks such as Ebola and Marburg with varying effects on its image and performance. With the outbreak of COVID-19, the industry has drawn lessons from the previous responses and management experiences to cope with the effects of the pandemic.

Research Limitations: The main limitation in this chapter is the low response rate due to stringent lockdown conditions and limited access to respondents and official documents.

Practical Implications: This chapter recommends the need to mainstream strategies for crisis management into the tourism policy and development planning frameworks.

Originality/Value: This chapter provides a robust approach to analyze tourism industry's response, recovery and sustainability after disease outbreaks, pandemics and related crises in future.

A YEAR having now elapsed since I concluded the sale of Clive Bingley Ltd, and the contract of sale having contained, at my insistence, a provision that I would remain with the company for not less than six months (to ensure a satisfactory transfer to the new regime) and not more than twelve months (to prevent the new regime being lumbered with an old fuddy‐duddy), I have now resigned my employment with Clive Bingley Ltd, and with the associated companies set up last year to encompass its projected expansion, namely K G Saur Ltd and KGS Reference Services Ltd. In lieu of my former directorships, I have agreed to act as a consultant to these companies for as long as either of us thinks I can be of service to them, a status which recognises the role 1 have in practical terms been playing during the months since the companies abandoned Pembridge Road for plushier new offices in the West End of London.

MODERN man can reach any part of this planet within thirty‐six hours. The people who inhabit it speak around two thousand languages. That is a measure of the difficulty in making human contacts. It makes the Tower of Babel seem like a kindergarten. In view of this, instead of bemoaning that the world has progressed so little, we should marvel that it has progressed so much.